Signs of a Battered Age

It's interesting to see, as I sit in my little loft, that two particular traits seem to be the root of problems in certain large institutions. By some coincidence, the leaders of these institutions are all graduates of the same elite school. And they have demonstrated a talent for plagiarism (almost without a doubt) and improper financial activity (depends on how you define improper).

It's all about THEFT, whether of intellectual property or the genuine tithes of the people, whether it is a decision to not give credit where it is due or to withhold information that would explain odd decisions. I can't wait for the next installment.

Then again, that's what the pyramid-scheme confidence-man said too.

Interlude: Hypocrisy

Just came across this today. It reminds me of stuff that happens in the Atlantean Education System, and which we don't take seriously enough.

Teachers do not always practice what they preach, or, perhaps more accurately, they don’t see that some of their own questionable practices may be condemned by their preaching. A senior faculty member who exploits the work of junior colleagues without listing them as authors is in no position to complain about students who fail to adequately acknowledge their sources (Gibelman & Gelman, 1999). That does not excuse the students, let alone justify their conduct, but it does contribute to a corrosive atmosphere of hypocrisy.

Teachers College Record, Date Published: March 12, 2009
http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 15591, Date Accessed: 4/1/2009 8:09:30 AM

I remember being a junior colleague exploited like this a lot. The reply to any query about it is normally, "You should be glad you have a job and we allow you to participate in such things and give you all kinds of opportunities."

Responses 000 (2009-2010)

Heh. Well, after yesterday's post, someone commented that if I finished the series, there might be difficulties. If you have a list of ten questions, with a large number of people all trying their hands at the same list, then after a while, the effect of plagiarism may occur. I say 'effect' because if you have a sufficiently large number of people thinking about the same problems, eventually some of them may duplicate the work of others. Of course, short commonalities are to be expected. The plagiarism effect arises not by coincidence, but by unconscious mental copying (the 'notebook in the head' effect).

True plagiarism, of course, is extremely difficult in this age of the Internet. It is just too easy to tap into a database and find matches. It is slightly more difficult to find paraphrases of ideas. But the student should be aware that plagiarism and breaching copyright are two different things. The latter subsists in making copies or derivatives of the form in which an idea is expressed; the former subsists in making copies or derivatives of the idea itself, without attribution.

It's considered very bad form, despite defences such as 'parallel evolution' and 'uncanny mystical coincidence'.

So in order to reduce the difficulty level, perhaps I shouldn't meditate at great length on the ideas I have concerning that list of questions...

Capitalism

When I walked out that door, I realised that I was carrying in my head a lot of intellectual capital. The ethical question was how much of it belonged to the institution and how much I ought to give back. My conclusion, arrived at after a fairly long period of self-inquisition, was that the answer was probably none. Why so? Was I being ungrateful?

The answer to that is simple. I specifically asked if the training, skills and ideas would go to waste, and the answer given to me was that I should use the training elsewhere, use the skills to get a better position elsewhere, and that the ideas had already been paid for and used up. I did not fully realise the magnanimity folded into that answer until I saw that it was a blanket absolution covering any notion of indebtedness.

It has dawned on me that I can now make my ideas public domain. I can even make my internal commentaries public domain. I signed nothing to the contrary, and have indeed been asked to go out and perhaps publish a book "since I am good at writing". All this amounts to valuable advice. I must now prepare to use that advice well.